Fantasy Basketball Buy/Sell

This is it. This is the week you have been waiting for all season. The final fantasy week for the majority of leagues has begun and I hope you are fighting for the championship. I’m rooting for you owners, the ones who adapted when DeMarcus Cousins went down, streamed like madmen and secured a playoff spot. For you that were ready to give up when your star-studded backcourt of Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry got injured and you lost your matchup to a 3pt-punt team due to triples, but still scratched and clawed your way to the finals. One more week of hustle and the trophy is yours.

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Just three weeks left in the NBA regular season. Man, how quickly time flies. Seems like just yesterday when preseason rankings were all the hype and Anthony Davis was viewed as more of a top 8 than top 5 player.

Boy, were we wrong. The Brow’s averages during this month are 31.2/0.8/12.7/1.9/1.8/3.4/2.5 on 52.5%/87.2% shooting and he has already played 64 games on the season. Utterly ridiculous performances all around and we might be witnessing one of the strongest fantasy months of all time. Many fantasy teams that will win it all this year will have him on their roster and it will be hard to take him anywhere below no 1 in next year’s drafts. Thoughts and prayers to all the owners that have to face him in the fantasy playoffs.

As per usual, starting with a quick recap of last week’s suggestions, Terry Rozier is currently getting all the minutes he can handle in Boston and will continue to produce even when Kyrie Irving returns, so congrats if you added him for the stretch run. I was also very impressed with Corey Brewer, who continues to defy expectations with a great week in which he averaged 3.7 steals and 14.3 points and was the 13th best player in fantasy during this span. Kyle O’Quinn’s contribution in the blocks department was also steady with 1.7 and he even helped in other categories with 9.3 rebounds and 1.3 steals. Finally, Allen Crabbe missed all but one game this week and, although, he was very efficient, he is just too inconsistent for my taste while Ish Smith’s minimal appeal is officially nonexistent with Reggie Jackson returning to the Pistons starting lineup.

If you are wondering about the title, just look at the postscript at the end of the article. It’s not basketball related but some things are far greater.

The playoffs have started for most fantasy leagues and I hope your teams are competing in them. May the basketball gods bless you with no injuries to your key players (ahem Stephen Curry) and good percentages to lead you to the championship. If you are instead in a Roto league, like I prefer for the most part, these injuries affect you less but it’s still a good time to focus on the categories that can give you the most points in the standings and shape your team accordingly.

On a completely different subject, as soon as I saw Josh Richardson and James Johnson celebrating after a made triple, I knew I had to include it in the article.

As per usual, let’s check the performance from last week’s suggested players, but before that, an extra shout out to my man Nemanja Bjelica, who I mentioned 2 weeks ago and is straight carrying my teams for the past weeks (ranked 18th during this period). Larry Nance Jr. has taken full advantage of the starting role in Cleveland, with three double-doubles in his last 5 games and will maintain this production for as long as Tristan Thompson is sidelined. On the other hand, Jakob Poeltl’s impressive defensive numbers faded this week as he averaged only 1.0 block after going for 2.7 per game during the previous two weeks. Finally, Skal Labissiere had two solid games before going down with a minor injury, while Marcin Gortat and Al-Farouq Aminu proved good drop calls as they had at best forgettable performances.

I recently reviewed the transactions that happened during the offseason and realized how much of an impact they had for this year’s playoff-bound teams. And while Kyrie Irving, Paul George, and Victor Oladipo had a huge impact on their teams, I personally think the most successful one was Daryl Morey’s acquisition of Chris Paul. The Rockets are playing D’Antoni basketball, racking up threes at a historic pace and are currently on a 16-game winning streak. The opposition does not seem to have an answer for their P&R and the fact that either Paul or James Harden are always on the floor spells double trouble. And unlike another Team Rocket, they don’t seem likely to go away easily…

And now, after trying to shamelessly exploit your childhood nostalgia by including a Pokemon reference, let’s move on to the usual review of last week’s calls. Alex Len was useful when he played, but Tyson Chandler’s return demoted him to a bench role again and he is an easy drop in my book. David Nwaba and Nemanja Bjelica, on the other hand, are getting starter minutes and look capable to maintain them going forward. The same can be said for JaMychal Green, who enjoyed a great week averaging 14 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 blocks. With Memphis going nowhere, he has a great ROS outlook. On the sell front, there is a rumor that Adam Silver warned the Chicago Bulls to stop benching their healthy veterans, but even if they do return to the rotation it won’t be for more than a handful of minutes each game. Finally, Ersan Ilyasova’s minutes took a major hit in Philadelphia as predicted and will struggle to maintain fantasy relevance in standard leagues.

The fantasy playoffs are closing in…The trade deadline has passed…You are desperately looking around for help…Should I drop player X? Should I stream player Y? So many questions, but never fear, as your all-time favorite Wednesday column here at Razzball is back.

The cringe is real.

After a short break due to the All-Star game, and with only a quarter of the season left, many teams are embracing the tank, while others are gearing up for the stretch run. All these changes affect the fantasy value of players in the aforementioned teams, so let’s dive straight into the buy/sell candidates for this week. The focus of the suggestions moving forward will be more about players that you can add from or drop to the waiver wire, due to the fact that in the majority of fantasy leagues the trade deadline has passed.

With less than a third of the season remaining the battle for a playoff spot in the West is fiercer than ever. Utah’s latest winning streak has complicated matters even more and currently six teams are separated by just three wins.

Presumably, the Pelicans are the odd man out with DeMarcus Cousins done for the year, but anything can happen in the remaining games so I wouldn’t bet against any team. I’m very interested to see in the comments your own predictions about the final standings in the Western Conference. The commenter with the best prediction will win my eternal love, as it’s Valentine’s day today, and a Brian Scalabrine bobblehead. The last part is a lie, because if I ever get my hands on such a bobblehead I’m never giving it away….

Moving on to last week’s calls, Michael Beasley unsurprisingly took a big chunk of Kristaps Porzingis’ usage and during the last week averaged 19.7 points with 8.3 rebounds. Hope you were quick enough and scooped him off the waiver wire, as he can be a game changer for the fantasy playoffs. Josh Jackson also had a good scoring week and, if you can offset his bad percentages, is a great keep as the youth movement continues in Phoenix. Finally, Tyrone Wallace’s minutes are on a free fall and you can safely move on if you haven’t already, while Isaiah Thomas was one of the victims of Cleveland’s deadline frenzy and will close the year as a Laker. I think his outlook improves with this move, as he will try and prove he deserves the max deal he craves, but is bad news for Josh Hart’s ROS outlook. It will be interesting to see how Luke Walton tweaks his rotation when Lonzo Ball returns and if Thomas can embrace a sixth man role for the young Lakers.

Another week, another gruesome injury in the NBA… Kristaps Porzingis tore his ACL last night and will be out for the next 9-12 months, meaning he will miss a portion of next season as well. Seems like every week an all-star goes down these days. I can’t remember a season with more replacements needed for the all-star game. Get well soon Unicorn!!

A quick note before moving on with last week’s calls recap. During the aforementioned game, Giannis Antetokounmpo channeled his inner Vince Carter and did this:

Wow…Tim Hardaway Jr. looks so small right there. I just hope the coaching change and Jabari Parker’s return helps the Greek Freak lead them to a deep playoff run. Yes, I’m biased towards a compatriot but he has developed through hard work into a superstar and deserves more team success.

Moving on to the usual review of my suggestions from last week. Reggie Bullock solidified his place as the starting SG in Detroit with 35 minutes and 2.3 triples per game, while Boban Marjanovic is completely out of Doc’s rotation. Rumors about a DeAndre Jordan trade are heating up with Portland reportedly being added to the list of potential suitors, but Boban is a luxury stash for the time being and can be safely dropped if DJ is not dealt. Tomas Satoransky proved the better PG add in Washington, as predicted, and is providing solid production with 10.0/0.8/2.5/4.8/2.0/0.0/1.5 since starting. However, the best call must have been Terry Rozier, who posted a 11-10-17 triple double and followed it up with a 31-point performance against the Knicks. Finally, Bismack Biyombo’s minutes remain too low for my liking and I haven’t regretted the decision to cut him last week.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week (in which case I’m interested to know how you manage), you have heard the news about the Blake Griffin trade. For those aforementioned people who don’t, here is the summary:

Clippers get: Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, a first round pick, a second round pick and the always charming Boban Marjanovic

I would love to read your thoughts down in the comments about who won the trade. My first instinct was that it all depends on Blake’s health and on how well he will mesh with Andre Drummond. Another conclusion that can be derived from the trade is that loyalty is dead in the NBA. Remember all the efforts the Clippers made to convince Blake to re-sign, which included filling the court with his photos and even raising an actual banner with his name into the rafters as a sign of their future devotion??

As always, let’s take a quick look at last week’s suggestions and how they performed. The Spurs duo of Dejounte Murray and Kyle Anderson were not very impressive, but their minutes are safe and will only improve moving forward. Murray is even averaging an absurd 8.6 rebounds in the last eight games. The Sacramento duo of Bogdan Bogdanovic and Buddy Hield, on the other hand, were not so hot as only one of them is having a good game each night. At least the Kings are sticking to their veteran-resting plan for now… Finally, Ersan Ilyasova’s minutes continue to trend in the wrong direction, but you can still get some value if you trade him right now…

Moving on to the new suggestions, this will be a heavy “Buy” week as injuries and the aforementioned trade have created opportunities for more players to become fantasy relevant.

I was watching last night’s game between the Spurs and the Cavs and it was hard to guess which was the team that was missing their superstar, as Cleveland suffered another defeat and are now 3-12 in their last 15 games. Something has to change in C-town and fast, as they have been atrocious on the defensive end (ranked 29th for the season) and their rotation is erratic at best. And no, bullying Kevin Love and implying he was faking an illness is not the way to go. Tyronn Lue stated that a lineup change is coming, so stay tuned.With that said, maybe Jason Kidd was just the first of many Eastern Conference head coaches to be fired this season.

The spirit of Mohamed Ali must have gotten into a lot of NBA players this past week as it was apparently a brawl bonanza. The first incident happened in Toronto, where Serge Ibaka came close to finding out first hand that James Johnson was undefeated in seven MMA matches and is the proud owner of a black belt.

Then the infamous Clippers-Rockets match provided one of the weirdest post-game incidents I can remember. Per reports, the Rockets players were angry with Blake Griffin and Austin Rivers so they came up with a masterplan to get into the Clippers locker room. They sent the imposing Clint Capela to knock from the front door while Chris Paul, James Harden, and Trevor Ariza tried sneaking from the back…. As we here at Razzball pride ourselves in our reporting work, here is a world-first look at the blueprint of the Rockets plans that night.

And to end the week, Arron Afflalo came just a bit short from connecting with a huge punch on Nemanja Bjelica, who promptly locked him up.

Kudos to Bjelica who genuinely tried to diffuse the situation when he could have reacted differently.

Ok folks, this was your boxing recap for the week. Let’s move on to the fantasy basketball review.